Walk­ing togeth­er in 2026

We feel the fresh, cold air on our faces and the snow crunch­es beneath our feet. This time, our New Year’s ski tour has turned into a win­ter walk. Our thoughts quick­ly begin to cir­cle around our insights from the year that has just end­ed. One thought fol­lows the next, one mem­o­ry leads to anoth­er – we are already right in the mid­dle of reflect­ing and learn­ing:

A let­ter in the post­box, a book project that chal­lenges us more than we thought, and an idea of how sto­ries trav­el though the fam­i­ly.

Three themes that we would like to share as an invi­ta­tion for a shared walk  and for a joy­ful 2026: 

When small hap­pi­ness sim­ply finds you …

Out of habit, wher­ev­er we are com­ing from, Urs always takes a quick look in the let­ter­box. It does­n’t real­ly mat­ter if it’s Sun­day or any after­noon, even when the mail has been emp­tied long ago 😉. This Sat­ur­day how­ev­er, he was reward­ed. With a broad grin, he said:  “You won’t believe what I found in our let­ter­box! Take a look at this let­ter …”.

“… brought me so much joy.” She thanked us for it and wrote about her home­sick­ness and how the stick­er brought back a lit­tle sense of home. She left us her email address and invit­ed us to vis­it her if we ever came to New Zealand. So far, so good. But Urs could­n’t stop think­ing about this let­ter. And yes, Urs replied to Tay­la and learned that she was cur­rent­ly stay­ing not far from us at all – with­in walk­ing dis­tance. 

We had invit­ed our fam­i­ly over for brunch on Sun­day. Every­thing was pre­pared and bought – but wasn’t there still one place free at the table? Late in the evening, Urs invit­ed Tay­la to join us for brunch the next day – spon­ta­neous­ly, with­out ask­ing any­one else, sim­ply because it seemed obvi­ous.

And indeed: Tay­la came the next day. She told us about her jour­ney – start­ing with a wed­ding in the USA, con­tin­u­ing on to Great Britain, and now she was in Switzer­land. There, she was help­ing a woman sell her belong­ings in exchange for room and board. In win­ter, she planned to con­tin­ue on to Cana­da, to the ski cir­cus.  

After Tay­la had left, Urs shared a sto­ry from his world trip with us: he had been trav­el­ling through Cana­da by bicy­cle and has just stopped at a super­mar­ket to buy sup­plies for the evening in his tent – soaked, alone, and feel­ing a lit­tle dis­cour­aged. A kind lady approached him, asked how he was, what he was doing there and how he was feel­ing. She invit­ed him to her home, offer­ing him a dry place to sleep and a warm din­ner.

The next day, Urs said good­bye and warm­ly invit­ed her to vis­it him in Switzer­land. She smiled and replied: “Young man, that’s very kind of you, but at my age, that won’t hap­pen any­more. You can’t return every­thing one-to-one. But one day, some­one will knock on your door, and then you can pass it on in the same spir­it.”

What we under­es­ti­mat­ed …

Our book! Announced to many peo­ple on many occa­sions, and even with a bril­liant graph­ic design­er and trans­la­tor already on board – and yet, parts of it still exist only in our heads. What hap­pened? Espe­cial­ly since we were so sure we would fin­ish it quick­ly?

• We don’t work con­sis­tent­ly enough accord­ing to the pri­or­i­ties we set for the book. We sched­ule writ­ing time in our cal­en­dars – just like appoint­ments with clients. But it’s all too easy to ignore these time slots and fill them with oth­er tasks that sud­den­ly seem more urgent (or sim­ply eas­i­er to com­plete). That might sound famil­iar to many of you 😉.

• Again and again, we chal­lenge our­selves in con­tent-relat­ed dis­cus­sions and inner debates. Is this real­ly right the way we’ve writ­ten it? Are we pre­cise enough here, too com­pli­cat­ed, or maybe too super­fi­cial? Does the orga­ni­za­tion­al design real­ly hold up in this form? Shouldn’t we be able to describe it more sim­ply? How per­fect does the text need to be – or can it real­is­ti­cal­ly be?

• Final­ly, the book should also be easy to read, bring out the occa­sion­al smile, and be enjoy­able. That means form and style mat­ter just as much as con­tent.

All of this chal­lenges us. It sparks the nec­es­sary dis­cus­sions. And despite every­thing, we are mov­ing for­ward. We have already learned a great deal through the process. It will come togeth­er – we are con­fi­dent, and we have not lost our joy in cre­at­ing at all.

How we share our adven­tures in mind …

We love books – and book­shops are a land of plen­ty for us, whether at an air­port in a new city or, espe­cial­ly before Christ­mas, in St. Gallen. Like small chil­dren, we look for­ward to our half-day in town. In the past, we thought before­hand about which book might be the right Christ­mas gift for whom.

We changed that a long time ago. Instead, we both wan­der off through the book­store, div­ing into worlds of sto­ries, fan­tasies and adven­tures. At some point, we meet up again, one of us with a bas­ket full of books, the oth­er with a head full of titles that can be gath­ered now. The result: our Christ­mas book pile

And that’s exact­ly how the books end up under the Christ­mas tree – as a pile of books, beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed with a rib­bon around them. These books get a spe­cial place for the com­ing year on the shelf above the TV. The idea is very sim­ple: any­one can take a book that appeals to them at the moment and return it once they’ve fin­ished read­ing it. And already, the next book smiles down from the shelf. So, the books cir­cu­late through the extend­ed fam­i­ly.

And this idea has already borne fur­ther fruit – the stack of books is now grow­ing. First loy­al vis­i­tors bring their favourite books for our stack, shar­ing their adven­tures in their minds – and, from time to time, becom­ing part of a fam­i­ly con­ver­sa­tion.